Gaviria doubles up with Tour of Guangxi stage 2 win

A day after his dominant stage one win at the Tour of Guangxi, Fernando Gaviria again sprinted to victory at the final WorldTour race of the career. The Quick-Step Floors rider also extended his overall race lead and also leads the points, young rider classifications.

The Colombian hit out early on the deceptive long one-kilometre finale but had enough speed to counter the over geared Max Walscheid (Team Sunweb) for win number 12 in 2017. Dutchman Wouter Wippert (Cannondale-Drapac) crossed the line in third.

Explaining that the number of fresh riders in the finale made for a messy sprint, Gaviria said his teammates were crucial in building the victory.

"I am really happy for the win," Gaviria said after collecting his three jerseys and spraying the victory champagne. "My team did a really good job. Always calm and together. In the final it was really crazy, my teammates were really strong and helped me to the front in the final and with good legs I went for my sprint. I started the sprint from a long way out."

With his 12th win of the season, Gaviria closes in on teammates Marcel Kittel's tally of 14 victories for the season. While the 23-year-old described himself as "really tired" he said that "maybe tomorrow I will try again."

After claiming more bonus seconds for his stage wins, Gaviria leads Silvan Dillier (BMC Racing) by five seconds and Walscheid by 14 seconds in the general classification. Despite his advantage over the riders expected to challenge in the stage 4 summit, and his ability to score bonus seconds for stage wins, Gaviria added: "in my head, I only have the flat stages."

How it happened

Moving north to Qinzhou from Beihai, stage 2 of the Tour of Guangxi saw multiple early attacks from the peloton as riders attempted to form a breakaway. Points leader Silvan Dillier (BMC), Jonathan Lastra (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA)) and Meiyin Wang (Bahrain-Merida) were the riders to survive the moves and form the day's breakaway.

Having won all three intermediate sprint points on stage 1, Dillier added two more to his tally and moved into the virtual red jersey. Wilco Kelderman won the first of the three for an important three-second bonus. The trio was given a long leash by the bunch throughout the stage with its lead reaching in advance of four minutes. Also extending Dillier's stint as virtual race leader on the road.

The escapees' lead was gradually brought down to under a minute inside 30km to race as the sprint teams started to arrange themselves for the finale. With several pairs of fresh legs in the peloton, Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) was one the riders to make a late move. However, with the breakaway reeled in and the final kilometre perfectly suited to a bunch sprint, it was Quick-Step Floors and Gaviria triumphing for the 54th time in season 2017.

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